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Measure Up – N Brown tracks the impact of its above-the-line media

Liam Corcoran, VP of ad and audience measurement EMEA at Research Now, explains how home shopping group N Brown tracks the effectiveness of its cross-device campaigns.

In an increasingly complex media world, the way content is consumed continues to proliferate, with consumers now completely device and channel agnostic. Content has become king.

Innovative media agency Carat had been working with N Brown, a successful digital retail group with 150 years’ experience in home shopping. N Brown had historically spent predominantly on above-the-line media, and it wanted to quantify the impact that the increasing digital budget was having on three of its core retail brands: JD Williams, Simply Be and Jacamo.

Carat needed to provide a holistic view of the campaign to its client. Having the ability to accurately measure a cross-device, multimedia ad campaign became critical to understanding the true impact that creative and messaging has on a consumer’s awareness and perception of the brand – which is where Research Now came in. We were able to provide this insight in one single source, through our cross-device measurement solution.

The big ideaRelying on claimed data and a lack of individual channel measurement meant that traditional brand tracking methodology was simply insufficient for delivering the insight which Carat needed to provide for its client.

Research Now provided a methodology that enabled the measurement of each channel’s impact (TV, print and digital) on brand metrics in isolation, alongside other media channels, throughout the campaign through real-time reporting.

N Brown wanted data to optimise campaigns while they were live, understanding which creatives were working, the optimal frequency of digital exposure and how the channel mix impacted various brand metrics. As well as optimising the campaign, the data was needed to aid future campaign planning, where a traditional brand tracker’s results would be too late to influence the Q4 2017 planning.

Research Now and Carat worked together to conduct a UK industry first trial of a new brand uplift, cross-media, cross-device methodology. The approach was trialled in Q4 2016 with one of the three brands. The trial delivered a wealth of insight for the teams and secured a Q2 2017 rollout across all three of N Brown’s power brands.

Making it happenEmploying Research Now’s cross-media measurement solution, which combines the benefits of persistent first-party cookies, Carat was able to capture the ad exposure across each of the media channels, linking multiple ad exposures (online and offline) to create an ‘exposed’ group of individual respondents, alongside a matching baseline control group.

Using a custom-designed survey sent to all respondents, Carat could assess campaign effectiveness, giving us the ability to compare uplift in brand KPIs for each media channel independently, as well as in groups, to provide attribution analysis.

This data was then fed into a ‘real-time’ dashboard where, unlike traditional trackers, Carat could view weekly changes to brand metrics by each media type, frequency of exposure, creative and site.

ResultsFor JD Williams, TV, press and digital advertising combined led to a five per cent uplift in brand awareness. Of those aware, the proportion who shopped with JD Williams was nine per cent higher. Exposure to press alone led to a one per cent fall in perceptions that the company sold a wide range of products, but if press was combined with TV or digital, a six per cent uplift was seen.

For Simply Be, exposure to TV and digital increased brand awareness by four per cent, while exposure to print and digital increased ad awareness by 10 per cent and those who chose to shop with Simply Be by four per cent. Exposure to TV, print and digital increased positive impression of the brand by 11 per cent and led to a 10 per cent increase in likelihood to shop.

For Jacamo, seeing TV and video advertising led to a four per cent uplift in brand awareness. Carat and N Brown will continue to measure and understand the incremental benefit that video adds to their TV strategy.

For the first time ever, Carat and N Brown were able to see a holistic view of their campaign across all channels, helping to optimise their spend. The fast turnaround enabled them to use the results for immediate effect with the next season’s campaigns, influencing their autumn/winter planning decisions.

The results show that a mix of media deliver higher results for N Brown. Carat is now confidently increasing investment in digital brand activity as it knows it supports the above-the-line campaign, and print continues to be an increasingly important part of the strategy, as it’s now proven to drive consideration and purchase intent.